Hope is the belief that the future is better and there’s a way to get there. Blake, my 9 year-old son, sitting in the front seat of the car, staring out the window said, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a Coach like you… and travel with you.” I don’t tell you this so you’ll think I am a great Dad. I’ll be honest; I have my doubts. Not in Blake, but in what I’m giving him. You probably know this from raising kids – it’s so day-to-day that it’s easy to feel lost in it. Sometimes I find myself thinking, “What am I doing? Is it working?” A CEO said something in a call that I’ll never forget, “James, I told myself this week that I am not enough.” He paused and then I could hear it click for him, “After years of trying to prove myself – I finally have hope.” Now, I have a Master’s degree in asking questions, but this one was not...

“Where do I go from here?” People hire a coach for lots of reasons, and I could tell that she’d been waiting to ask this question. She had this presence about her that made her feel far away from me in the conversation. I was intimidated. She wasn’t stuck. She wasn’t confused. She had arrived. It reminds me of when my daughters were little, I took them camping and I left all the food on the counter at home. A 3 and 5 year old, 6 o’clock at night and an hour and a half away from the nearest McDonalds, the nearest anything. It was classic. When you arrive at what you’ve wanted, it often doesn’t feel like what you hoped for. This woman was smart, entrepreneurial and unwilling to stop. And now, she had come to a place she had never been before. Nothing else to push for. “How do you rest?” I asked. “James, I don’t rest.” And from the way she said it, I believed...

“The more I push, the more they complain.” I could hear my client’s frustration, he said almost giving up, “The angrier I get, the less I see in my team.” You know what’s ironic? The change we want for others, has to start with us. People around you are going to keep doing what they’ve been doing or not doing, unless you change what you’re doing. I’ve been coaching for 12 years, full time, and I’m still amazed at what I learn from the people I talk with every day. Change is not something that can be told, it’s something that’s realized. Some of the hardest people to coach are those that say, “I don’t need to change.” And I was surprised he actually said it. This 55 year old executive started our coaching relationship with these words, “James, I was brought in to change this company. And they need it, not me.” Two months later, he was silent. It had been week after week of coaching, and he...

“What gets in the way of you listening?” I asked a group of executives, “Of you being present and focused on the person you’re with?” They were really honest, “Wondering what time it is. Thinking about what I’m going to say next. Relating what the person is saying to me. Deciding if what they’re saying is right or wrong. Planning the next thing on my schedule. People watching.” In the middle of all this, a man in his fifties said, “Me… I get in the way of listening to people” So much happens in our minds when people are talking to us, unfortunately so little of it has to do with what they are saying. It’s the way our minds work. Everything you hear you associate with what you already know. Even the things that are brand new to you, are filed with the old stuff. You take what others are saying and relate it to yourself. That’s unfortunate. I remember my first coaching class when I was in graduate school,...

I’m 6’6”. Besides airplane bathrooms that is rarely an issue, except when you’re co-training with a 5’4” woman. I remember at a break half-way through our training event she pulled me aside and said, “James, we have to get a stool.” I’ll be honest, the first thing that came through my head was, “She is NOT going to stand on a stool?!” Fortunately I have learned to ask questions, “What for?” I asked. She said, “So you can sit on it!” Sometimes when we stand things next to each other we notice the differences. There’s a big difference in leaders that use their positions to lead, and leaders who lead people. Positional leaders sit in the offices thinking “I’m responsible for this.” Launching Leaders have a well worn path to the offices of the people on their team, creating a shared sense of responsibility and inspiring a shared vision. Positional Leader: Sees people in need of their help Launching Leader: Sees people as healthy creative and whole Positional Leader: Wants...